volume 22, no. 10 0.

Introduction
 july 2022
Unlike those drawing on misogynist ideology to punish
women for “stepping out of line”—for aspiring beyond
their place, as it were—the hostile enforcer of gender
conformity relies on the ideology of gender binarism to

The Logic of
insist that the gender non-conforming person is entitled
to no space, no place, no existential entitlement. There is
no place for the gender non-conforming person to retreat
and exist as such. Retreat—conformity to the gender bi-

Misandrogyny
nary—entails annihilation, non-existence. (Watson 2020,
240)

Lori Watson is here describing what she calls “misandrogyny.”1 This

paper gives an account of misandrogyny as a system of mechanisms
and centers attention on misandrogyny’s targets, not its perpetrators
or their psychologies. In these ways, the account is modeled after Kate
Manne’s account of misogyny in Down Girl.
Manne’s account centers attention on its targets rather than
its perpetrators, and it characterizes misogyny as systemic rather
than psychological. Rather than suppose that misogyny requires its
perpetrator(s) to loathe women, Manne proposes that misogyny is

Jeff M. Engelhardt
Dickinson College
©  2022  Jeff M. Engelhardt
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
<www.philosophersimprint.org/022010/>
the “‘law enforcement’ branch of a patriarchal order, which has the
overall function of policing and enforcing its overall ideology” (Manne
2019, 63). The ideology that misogyny enforces is constituted by pa-
triarchal norms and expectations that call women to give feminine-
coded goods to men: “[B]y the lights of patriarchal ideology, a woman
is often expected to play the role of a man’s attentive, loving subor-
dinate” (ibid., 57). Feminine-coded goods include sex, attention, care,
epistemic deference, and sympathy. When women don’t provide these
goods, the mechanisms of misogyny put them back in their patriarchal
1. Watson acknowledges that the term is suboptimal in that it suggests that
all gender non-conforming persons are committed to androgyny. The term,
however, captures “the hostility, both interpersonal and structural, that gen-
der non-conforming persons face” (Watson 2020, 237). I follow Watson in
using the term for these reasons while rejecting “the implication that gender
non-conformity entails androgyny” (ibid., 237).

 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
place with hostility, threats, and violence (ibid., 47). Misogyny targets
women because they are women in a man’s world (not in a man’s mind),
and it maintains the patriarchal gender hierarchy by keeping women
in their subordinate place in a man’s world.
On the account of misandrogyny developed here, it is likewise a
law enforcement branch of a patriarchal2 order, not a psychological
disposition. Where misogyny enforces the patriarchal gender hierar-
chy, misandrogyny is a system of mechanisms that together police and
enforce the gender binary of a patriarchal order. The gender binary
is constituted by norms that preclude the existence of persons who
aren’t consistently “read” either as a man (and only a man) or as a
woman (and only a woman). Misandrogyny thus polices and enforc-
es exactly the nonexistence of people who are neither women (only)
nor men (only). I’ll use “gender non-conforming folks” or “GNC folks”
to refer to these targets of misandrogyny. (I’ll elaborate on the term
below.) Whereas misogyny targets women because they ought to be
subordinate according to dominant gender structures, misandrogyny
targets GNC folks because they ought not to exist according to domi-
nant gender structures.3 Whereas misogyny pushes women down into
their subordinate place, misandrogyny pushes GNC folks out of exis-
tence—either by pushing its targets out of literal or social existence or
by pushing them into binary gender positions.
Giving this account of misandrogyny reveals the unity in a number
of processes that target GNC folks, thereby pointing to the workings
of a system that polices and enforces the gender binary. Misandrogyny,
like misogyny, is best understood as a system that targets people who
are distinctively positioned in a gendered system. Rather than focus
on the psychological motivations of those who perpetrate it, it’s bet-
ter to uncover the systems that victimize GNC people, that cultivate
2. I intend to follow Manne’s use of “patriarchy” and its cognates, according to
which it refers, broadly, to a system of gender-based dominance that divides
persons into binary genders (men and women) and privileges men.
3. Thanks to a referee for this journal for suggesting the latter clause in this
sentence.
philosophers’ imprint –  2  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
psychological dispositions that encourage targeting GNC folk for vio-
lence, and that erase GNC folks from view.
In the remainder of this section, I develop a few preliminary points
that put the analysis in context and address some questions. Sections
1–3 describe three kinds of misandrogynistic mechanisms. I divide the
mechanisms according to the different ways that they push GNC folk
into nonexistence. Mechanisms of assignment push individual GNC folk
into one patriarchal gender role or the other—typically (but not al-
ways) the role associated with their sex assigned at birth. Mechanisms
of assimilation make it so that GNC folk can’t access basic necessities or
other goods unless we cease to be GNC and assimilate into the gender
binary. These mechanisms push GNC folk into some place, any place
in the gender binary.4 Mechanisms of annihilation aim to bring it about
that GNC folk are nonexistent. They push GNC folk out of literal, so-
cial, legal, institutional, or epistemic existence. In describing mecha-
nisms of annihilation in section 3, I focus on mechanisms that target
GNC folk for literal, physical death. It would take separate papers to
fully develop the ideas of social, legal, institutional, and epistemic
nonexistence, and I won’t attempt it here.
0.1 Preliminaries
Who are GNC folk?
I use “GNC folk” to refer to misandrogyny’s targets. A person is GNC
in this sense just in case they are not consistently situated among pa-
triarchal norms as either a man (only) or a woman (only). Loosely,
“GNC folk” refers to everyone who isn’t either a man or a woman ac-
cording to patriarchal norms. Patriarchal norms not only call for women
to give feminine-coded goods to men; they also determine whether
one is (situated at a time and place as) a woman, a man, both, nei-
ther, etc. In making sense of this, it can help to think that there are
4. These mechanisms do not necessarily push one to conform to the gender
assigned at birth. They structure the world in ways that make various neces-
sities and resources unavailable unless one assimilates to the gender binary.
Section 2 clarifies this point further.
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
two “levels” of patriarchal norms. The norms that Manne describes,
the norms that demand feminine-coded goods from women, are at
a “higher” level. The “lower-level” patriarchal norms determine how
people are situated in that hierarchy (if they’re situated in it at all).5
For example, the lower-level norms in the contemporary United States
make it so that (with a lot of qualifications and caveats) a skinny White
person with shoulder-length hair is more likely to be read as a woman.
These lower-level norms determine which parts of human bodies mat-
ter to determining gender in which contexts,6 which behaviors are to
be read as relevant to gender and how, which clothes and accessories,
which jobs, which kinds of friendship, etc. etc. ad nauseam (cf. Ásta
2011; Butler 1990; 1993). Some people are situated among these norms
such that they are consistently taken to be gender-conforming women.
Others are situated such that they are consistently taken to be gender-
conforming men. “GNC folk” refers to everyone else.
There are three important points to keep in mind about how I’m
using “GNC folk” here.
First, note that my characterization is based on how persons are sit-
uated among patriarchal norms—it is not based on self-identification,
chromosomes, or genitalia. For instance, if Ze identifies as gender-
queer, then there’s a case to be made that Ze is genderqueer; but if Ze is
consistently situated among patriarchal norms as a man, then Ze is not
in the extension of “GNC folk” as I’m characterizing it here. Similarly,
if Chitra identifies as a cis woman, but she isn’t consistently situated as
a woman among patriarchal norms, and she isn’t consistently situated
as a man among patriarchal norms, then Chitra is GNC as I’m defining
it here. Thus, ”GNC folk” as I characterize its extensionincludes many
5. This level of norms is “lower” in the sense that it is prerequisite to the higher-
level norms. The lower level sorts us into the gender binary, and then the
higher level establishes a hierarchical ordering of the two sorts. Thanks to a
referee for this journal for pushing me to clarify the higher/lower metaphor
here.
6. For example: hair, chest, and shoulders in many contexts but perhaps not at
elite weight-lifting events; musculature in the hands but not the feet; hair on
faces, arms, legs, and chests, etc.
philosophers’ imprint –  3  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
people who do not and would not identify as gender non-conforming,
and it excludes some people who would identify as non-binary, agen-
der, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, etc. It includes many (but
not all) cis people, many (but not all) transpeople, and many (but not
all) people who identify as non-binary, GNC, genderqueer, etc.
That’s because my aim in the paper is to articulate a system that en-
forces patriarchal norms. What makes one a target of that enforcement
is how one is situated among patriarchal norms. Similarly, Manne’s ac-
count of misogyny is about how people are situated in hierarchical pa-
triarchal norms and how they’re targeted by patriarchy’s mechanisms
of enforcement. On the analogous view offered here, misandrogyny
is about how people are situated in patriarchy’s gender binary norms
and how they’re targeted by its mechanisms of enforcement. Self-iden-
tification, chromosomes, and genitalia may affect how one is situated
among patriarchal norms, of course, and when they do, they will af-
fect whether one is GNC or not. So self-identification, chromosomes,
genitalia, gender presentation, etc. can affect whether one is GNC or
not on the characterization given here. But they matter only insofar as
they affect one’s positioning among patriarchal norms.
Second, keep in mind that one’s positioning among patriarchal
norms is influenced by various ideologies, stereotypes, myths, and cul-
tural tropes. As Robin Zheng (among others) has pointed out, races
are often “gendered,” so that “Asians as a racialized group are stereo-
typed as feminine,” and “Blacks as a racialized group … are stereo-
typed as masculine” (Zheng 2016, 405–6). Such stereotypes plausibly
contribute to how one is gender-positioned in various institutions:
Angela Davis suggests that conceptions of femininity centering White-
ness led to Black and Indigenous American women being incarcerated
in men’s prisons in the nineteenth century (Davis 2003, 72). Similarly,
insofar as gender conceptions in the West often center wealthy, young,
non-disabled, White, straight, cis people, they make it so that class,
age, ability status, race, sexual orientation, and gender identity, among
other things, affect how one is positioned among patriarchal gen-
der norms. Patriarchal norms interact with norms of classism, White
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
supremacy, ableism, ageism, heterosexism, and others to determine
whether or not one is GNC.
Third, I said above that misandrogyny targets anyone who isn’t
consistently read as either a woman only or a man only. That’s a con-
venient shorthand, but “read” has stronger psychological connotations
than is appropriate here. Being read as neither a man (only) nor a
woman (only) will often correlate with being a target of misandrogyny,
but the basis for being a target of misandrogyny is how one is situated
among patriarchal norms, not how one is read (although of course the
two are strongly correlated).
Are there GNC-coded goods?
There seems to be an obvious disanalogy between misogyny on
Manne’s account and misandrogyny as I’ve described it. Misogyny
targets women in order to police and enforce patriarchal norms that
call for women to give feminine-coded goods to men. Misandrogyny,
I’ve said, targets GNC folk in order to police and enforce norms that
constitute the gender binary. The most straightforward way to push
this analogy would be to say that there are GNC-coded goods and
patriarchal norms that call for GNC folk to give these goods to men
(or perhaps men and women). But are there any GNC-coded goods?
If patriarchal norms give no place to GNC folk, isn’t it dubious that
they also mark some goods as GNC-coded? Rather, there should be no
such marking under patriarchy.
For the reasons just suggested, I’m going to proceed as though
there are no gender non-conforming-coded goods under patriarchy.
(Which isn’t to say that there are no GNC-coded goods! Just that pa-
triarchy doesn’t recognize any.) But I think the question is worth tak-
ing seriously. Although it’s useful to describe the “logic” of oppressive
systems when we’re articulating them, there are good reasons to think
that they can be self-contradictory. Women, for instance, are expected
to be both sexually available and chaste. It is not out of the question
that GNC folk may be normatively positioned as both nonexistent and
givers of some goods. It is worth considering, for instance, whether
philosophers’ imprint –  4  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
settler-colonial White supremacy situates Indigenous American non-
binary gender systems and the non-binary persons in those systems as
having some distinctively GNC-coded goods in some cases.
That said, the account of misandrogyny given here doesn’t require
that there be GNC-coded goods under patriarchy. The analogy turns
on the enforcement of patriarchal norms. Where misogyny enforces
the norms of the gender hierarchy, misandrogyny enforces the norms
of the gender binary. Where misogyny polices and enforces women’s
role in the gender hierarchy, misandrogyny polices and enforces the
nonexistence of GNC folks in the gender binary. Misogyny pushes
women down into subordinate gender roles; misandrogyny pushes
GNC folk out of existence.
If there aren’t GNC-coded goods, what are gender binary norms like?
In my view, there are three broad kinds of patriarchal norms that get
enforced by three kinds of misandrogynistic mechanisms. I sketch
them here and return to them in the sections below. The relevant
norms are unified in that they call us to expect and endorse the non-
existence of GNC folk. They do this in different ways. In some cases,
they call us to conform to our assigned birth genders and to expect
that others will do the same. In other cases, norms of the same kind
call us to conform to one binary gender or another, if not to one’s birth
assignment. Remove bodily hair to be a woman; don’t remove it to be
a man. Grow long hair to be a woman; don’t to be a man. Build upper
body musculature to be a man; diet to be a woman. And so on. These
norms call us to rid ourselves of features that would make us gender
non-conforming, whether the gender we conform to “matches” one’s
sex assigned at birth or not, and they call us to expect that others will
likewise render their gender non-conformity nonexistent. I call these
“norms of assignment.”
In addition, patriarchal norms call us to endorse and expect that
every person is either a man or a woman, no one is both, and no one
is neither. These norms are evident in how readily we accept, for in-
stance, gender binary bathroom options. In taking it that it’s acceptable
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
(under patriarchal norms) for a school or public space to have gender
binary bathroom options, it’s accepted that everyone is either a man
or a woman and no one is neither. In accepting that there won’t be
any men in women’s rooms and there won’t be any women in men’s
rooms, it’s accepted that no one is both a woman and a man. The same
considerations apply, mutatis mutandis, for gender segregated prisons,
schools, dormitories, sports, and shelters, and for gender-markings on
government identification, gender-marked school uniforms, and gen-
der-marked professional dress. These all evidence what I call “norms
of assimilation.”
In some of the more jarring cases, patriarchal norms call us to en-
dorse and expect that GNC folk have no place in society. These ex-
pectations are plausibly entangled with the two kinds of norms noted
above. Expecting that everyone will eradicate features that don’t con-
form to one of the two binary genders can have a hint of the expecta-
tion that if we don’t eradicate those features, then there will be no place
for us: we will be socially unwanted, undeserving of attention and
care, without standing in economic, educational, political, and social
spaces. And accepting that gender binary bathrooms accommodate all
persons can give us the impression that not only is there no place for
GNC folk in society but that’s how it ought to be—there ought to be
no place for GNC folk. Similar expectations show up in how normal
it feels to many people that GNC folk are marginalized economically,
legally, socially, and institutionally. I’m not convinced that there are
distinctive patriarchal norms that underwrite these expectations; they
may be grounded in the kinds of norms noted above. But there are
distinctive mechanisms that aim to bring it about that GNC folk have
no place in society; I call them “mechanisms of annihilation.”
Is this analysis intersectional?
Some commentators have criticized Manne’s account of misogyny on
grounds that it fails to be intersectional. For instance, Nora Berenstain
charges that while Manne “makes room” for insights about intersect-
ing oppressions and includes examples involving women who are
philosophers’ imprint –  5  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
not rich, White, hetero, cis, or otherwise privileged, that’s not enough.
An intersectional analysis should also “theorize misogyny and other
forms of oppression as structurally interdependent,” and discussion of
examples should include substantive analyses of the roles that other
forms of oppression play (Berenstain 2019, 1367). Insofar as the pres-
ent analysis is modeled on Manne’s, it is reasonable to ask whether the
account given here also fails to be intersectional.7
This section gives reasons to think that the analysis in this paper
is intersectional. I’ll point to influential accounts of what makes an
analysis intersectional and to parts of the present paper that exhibit
the relevant intersectional-making features.
Kimberlé Crenshaw is most often credited with coining the term
“intersectionality.” Crenshaw makes the case that analyses of oppres-
sion in terms of just one “axis” or issue—racial oppression, say—tend
to focus attention on the most privileged members of an oppressed
group (e.g., class-privileged Black men, class-privileged cis White
women) and obscure (or at least leave unanalyzed) the mechanisms
that target the most vulnerable (e.g., poor Black women). (See, e.g.,
Crenshaw 1989, 151–152.) In order to avoid theorizing that further en-
trenches privilege and obscures vulnerability, we should offer analy-
ses that acknowledge multiple axes of oppression and focus on those
who are disadvantaged by multiple axes—those who are situated at
the intersections of multiple axes of oppression. Thus, I focus on those
who are situated at the intersections of multiple axes of oppression.
For each mechanism of misandrogyny described below, I provide ex-
amples illustrating the mechanism working in concert with other axes
of oppression.
But as Berenstain points out, it’s not enough merely to give ex-
amples that focus on persons disadvantaged by multiple axes of op-
pression; we should also provide substantive analyses of those other
forms of oppression. Each section below includes substantive (but of
course brief) discussions of forms of oppression that intersect with
7. I’m grateful to a referee for this journal for pressing me on this point.
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
misandrogyny. In discussing mechanisms of assignment, for instance,
I appeal to Angela Davis’s analysis of how women’s prisons reinforce
gender, race, and class hierarchies. The section on mechanisms of as-
similation engages with analyses of the war on terror and colonialism.
Section 3 discusses mechanisms of annihilation in conjunction with
analyses of transphobia, White ignorance, and settler colonialism.
One reason that intersectional analyses include substantive discus-
sion of various forms of oppression is that, as Berenstain says, they
“theorize misogyny and other forms of oppression as structurally inter-
dependent.” Patricia Hill Collins says intersectional analyses draw on
the insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. operate as “recipro-
cally constructing phenomena” (Collins 2015, 2). Similarly, Vivian May
says intersectionality approaches “systems of oppression as enmeshed
and mutually reinforcing” (May 2015, 3). Accordingly, this paper pres-
ents misandrogyny as interdependent and mutually reinforcing with
patriarchy, White supremacy, colonialism, heterosexism, imperialism,
and other systems of oppression. In section 2, for instance, I make the
case that mechanisms of assimilation are mutually reinforcing with co-
lonialism, White supremacy, and the targeting of undocumented im-
migrants. Each section discusses interdependencies between specific
mechanisms of misandrogyny and various other forms of oppression.
Ange-Marie Hancock proposes that, among other things, intersec-
tional analyses identify four “playing fields” upon which race, gender,
class, etc. interact: “the hegemonic (ideas, cultures, and ideologies),
structural (social institutions), disciplinary (bureaucratic hierarchies
and administrative practices), and interpersonal (routinized interac-
tions among individuals)” (Hancock 2007, 74). This paper identifies
intersections in each of these playing fields: we saw above that vari-
ous ideologies interact in determining the extension of “GNC folk.”
We’ll see below that misandrogyny interacts with White supremacy,
colonialism, and sexism on the structural playing field, with White su-
premacy and the war on terror on the disciplinary playing field, and
with racialized social power, White conceptions of queerness, trans-
phobia, homophobia, and racism in interpersonal interactions.
philosophers’ imprint –  6  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
It would be fruitful to identify more interactions on the various
playing fields Hancock mentions, and perhaps it would help to con-
sider other accounts of intersectionality, but I hope this suffices for this
relatively short piece.
Misandrogyny and transphobia
Many GNC folk who are targets of misandrogyny are trans. According
to a common misconception, every trans person has a binary gender:
they have had medical interventions to transition away from one to
“the other” binary gender. But this conception conflicts with one of the
more influential definitions of “transgender” in trans studies, namely,
that given by Susan Stryker: “any and all kinds of variation from gen-
der norms and expectations” (Stryker 2008, 19). (The common mis-
conception, of course, illustrates the invisibility of GNC folk.) If we
take “gender norms and expectations” in this definition to refer to pa-
triarchal norms and expectations, then it would seem that everyone
who is GNC is also transgender and vice versa.8 This overlap suggests
a question: Why say that what I’m describing here is misandrogyny
rather than transphobia?
Scholarly and popular usage most often take “transphobia” to refer
to psychological biases and negative attitudes that target transpeople.
Take, for instance, Talia Mae Bettcher’s use: “I use the term transphobia
not necessarily to imply the fear of transpeople, but simply any nega-
tive attitudes (hatred, loathing, rage, or moral indignation) harbored
toward transpeople on the basis of our enactments of gender” (Bet-
tcher 2007, 46). As Bettcher notes, such attitudes likely “lie at the root
of much violence against transpeople” (ibid.). This, I take it, gives us
reason to maintain a use of “transphobia” that refers to negative psy-
chological attitudes.
8. Keep in mind, however, that there may be cases in which a person identifies
as trans but is consistently situated among patriarchal norms as a woman
only or a man only; in this case, I take it that the person is trans by virtue of
their self-identity, but they are not GNC on my definition because they are
not positioned among patriarchal gender norms and expectations as neither
a man only nor a woman only.
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
This does not imply (and I don’t take Bettcher to be saying) that
there aren’t systems of mechanisms—in addition to individual psycho-
logical attitudes—that target transpeople for violence. There are. In my
view, these mechanisms overlap considerably with the mechanisms
of misandrogyny. Mechanisms of misandrogyny target anyone who
doesn’t conform to the gender binary, i.e., GNC folk. Many transpeo-
ple are GNC folk and vice versa. Accordingly, the mechanisms I de-
scribe here overlap considerably with mechanisms that target trans
folk. But rather than repurpose the term “transphobia” to refer to these
mechanisms, it is preferable to retain the term that refers to negative
psychological attitudes toward transpeople. It’s important to have a
term with that referent. Moreover, Lori Watson has introduced the
term “misandrogyny” for the purpose of referring to mechanisms that
target gender-non-conforming people. Since the term “transphobia”
is already in use for a different important purpose, and since “misan-
drogyny” is already used to refer to mechanisms that target GNC folk,
I use misandrogyny for that same purpose here, and I refrain from re-
purposing “transphobia.”
In addition, as a dominant binary trans narrative has emerged, it
may be that patriarchal norms that situate binary transpeople qua trans
have emerged as well, and these may be accompanied by distinctive
mechanisms of enforcement. An adequate account of transphobia as
a system of mechanisms should determine whether these possibilities
are actual at present. That’s not my aim here. Consequently, the ac-
count here would plausibly be inadequate as an account of systems of
transphobia, and I discourage readers from thinking of it as one.
So much for preliminaries. In the following sections, I’ve divided
the mechanisms that enforce misandrogyny into three kinds. I suspect
there are more, though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are better
ways to classify the mechanisms. I propose the following as a point of
departure.
philosophers’ imprint –  7  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
1. Assignment
Norms of assignment call us to rid ourselves of features that would
make us gender non-conforming and to expect that others will do the
same. Mechanisms of assignment enforce these norms. They enforce
the placelessness of GNC folk by assigning each of us to a specific
position in the gender binary.
We’re subject to mechanisms of assignment at least from birth. In
many hospitals in the United States and Europe, patriarchal gender
norms dictate that a newborn’s gender is fully determined by their
genitalia and hormones—these are the only features available to situ-
ate a newborn among patriarchal gender norms. Consequently, patri-
archal norms don’t distinguish between a person who is intersex and
one who is gender non-conforming at this stage of life; intersex new-
borns are often situated as gender non-conforming, and as such, they
are subject to mechanisms of misandrogyny. Their bodies are made to
conform to the gender binary through sex assignment, surgeries, and
hormone treatments.
As Anne Fausto-Sterling (among others) has described, it is shock-
ingly common for practitioners to perform medical interventions on
intersex newborns, altering their bodies so that they conform to the
gender binary. Upon the birth of a child whose genitalia are “either/
or, neither/both,” as Fausto-Sterling puts it, “the attending physician
… consults a pediatric endocrinologist and a surgeon, and they de-
clare a state of medical emergency” (Fausto-Sterling 2000, 45). They
tell the parents that they can and will “identify the ‘true’ sex that lies
underneath the surface condition” (ibid., 50). Once they do, they’ll use
hormonal and surgical treatments to alter the child’s body to conform
to the gender assignment. As research shows and as intersex activ-
ists point out, such medical interventions are plausible violations of
patient agency and likely contribute to later psychological distress
(Ferrara and Casper 2018, 3). In addition, in order to maintain the pre-
sumed “naturalness” of the binary gender position to which a child has
been assigned, many parents and physicians don’t tell the child about
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
the medical interventions they’ve undergone. Monica Casper reports
that when she was the executive director of the Intersex Society of
North America (ISNA), “she was told repeatedly by activists that learn-
ing they were lied to by their parents and physicians was ‘far worse’
than any physical alteration to their bodies, although these too were
seen as damaging” (ibid., 3).
Throughout life, one is routinely punished for gender non-confor-
mity in ways that push one into a gender assignment. These punish-
ments range from everyday gender policing to violent attacks. Every-
day gender policing includes bullying, taunts, nudges, and corrections
whenever one steps out of gender conformity. In these cases, one is
often read as a failed or unruly man or woman (cf. Watson 2020, 240).
Bullying and taunts target one for being a failure; nudges and correc-
tions aim to help one overcome one’s gender failures. Bullying and
taunts for gender non-conformity are likely familiar from most readers’
personal experiences—as recipients, witnesses, and/or bullies. It’s lit-
tle surprise that gender non-conforming children and adults are more
likely to be targeted for bullying, harassment, and name-calling than
gender-conforming peers (Clarke 2019, 910).
Nudges and corrections often come from parents, teachers, coach-
es, and friends. Children who wear the “wrong” clothes, play with
the wrong toys, play the wrong sports, play too aggressively or too
passively, speak in the wrong ways, walk in the wrong ways, etc. etc.
are often thereby situated among patriarchal norms as gender non-
conforming. They are then subject to mechanisms of assignment that
push them back into a gender assignment by disapproving looks or
remarks; by having toys, activities, or clothes hidden or taken away,
by pressure to join gender-conforming activities, sports, friend groups,
and so on. Meanwhile, teens and adults, especially those read as AFAB
(assigned female at birth), might receive humiliating nudges or cor-
rections that push them toward their perceived gender assignment:
advice on makeup, clothes, hair styles, social passivity, etc. or for those
read as AMAB (assigned male at birth), exhortations to be more ag-
gressive, dominant, muscular, etc.
philosophers’ imprint –  8  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
Adult conversation often involves subtle mechanisms of assign-
ment. Z Nicolazzo describes cases in which Black non-binary trans
students are pushed into binary gender assignments by subtle dismiss-
als from predominantly White queer student groups. These dismiss-
als tend to characterize the Black non-binary students as not “trans
enough,” leveraging racialized social power to police what is and isn’t
“trans enough,” and illustrating the dominant conception of queerness
as White queerness (Nicolazzo 2016, 8–10; Logie and Rwigema 2014;
cf. Clarke 2019, 911). One case focuses on Silvia, a Black non-binary
trans college student who identifies as agender and multiply disabled,
and who uses “she/her/hers” pronouns. Silvia is talking to a binary
trans man in the mostly White student group TransActions, which fo-
cuses on trans issues and gender activism. As Silvia describes a date
she’s been on, the other student says, “This conversation really proves
that I’m not a woman” (Nicolazzo 2016, 10). The implication is that
Silvia is a woman, and the differences between the speaker and Silvia
revealed in the story suffice to establish that the speaker is not a wom-
an.9 But Silvia isn’t a woman either. She’s agender. Nonetheless, when
she tried to describe aspects of her life to a predominantly White trans
group, she was subtly pushed to interpret her experiences as those of
a cis woman. Prima facie, binary gender norms and racial norms that
position queerness as White conspired to preclude the possibility of
Silvia’s being Black, trans, and non-binary. When she tried, she was as-
signed to cis womanhood by her White peers’ subtle dismissals—dis-
missals deriving their power partly from mutually reinforcing mecha-
nisms of misandrogyny, White supremacy, and ableism.
Because these mechanisms push us into being either a man (and
not a woman) or a woman (and not a man), they often differ in how
they push us: the ways they push one to be a man differ from the ways
they push one to be a woman. This is manifest when mechanisms
9. If it helps, you can think of Silvia’s conversation in terms of Mary Kate Mc-
Gowan’s conversational exercitives. Silvia’s peer makes a conversational move
that is “fair play” only if Silvia is a woman. If no one objects, then it is sub-
sequently permissible in the conversation to take it that Silvia is a woman
(McGowan 2009).
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
of assignment are violent. Katherine A. Rimes and colleagues (2019)
compared victimization experiences of non-binary and binary trans
youth according to sex assigned at birth. They found that AFAB study
participants, both binary and non-binary, were more likely than non-
binary and binary AMAB (assigned male at birth) participants to expe-
rience sexual abuse. Rape and sexual abuse push one into a woman’s
patriarchal position by extracting feminine-coded goods. They “make”
their targets women by forcing a “failed woman” or a “disobedient
woman” into the patriarchal feminine sexual role (Rimes et al. 2019,
237). Meanwhile, when mechanisms of assignment violently push one
into a man’s role, they often aim to provoke one into enacting patriar-
chal masculinity. They try to goad the target into violence, dominat-
ing others, or sexual abuse of women. This may explain why Rimes
and colleagues found that AMAB study participants, both binary and
non-binary, were more likely than non-binary and binary AFAB par-
ticipants to experience physical assault (ibid., 237).
Much work on early women’s prisons reveals both (i) how they
enforced the gender binary and (ii) how misandrogyny can be mutu-
ally reinforcing with misogyny, White supremacy, and class domina-
tion. Angela Davis characterizes AFAB convicts in a way that resem-
bles Lori Watson’s remark that presumed AFAB GNC folk are seen as
“failed women”: “According to dominant views [during the nineteenth
century], women convicts were irrevocably fallen women. … [F]emale
criminals were seen as having transgressed fundamental moral prin-
ciples of womanhood” (2003, 70). Prison reformers didn’t challenge
the idea that women convicts were fallen women but that they were
beyond redemption. As a path to redemption, reformers proposed
prisons that would push criminalized AFAB persons to assimilate to
White, middle-class domestic roles. Reporting on a prison described
by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Davis says their regimes were “based on
the assumption that ‘criminal’ women could be rehabilitated by as-
similating correct womanly behaviors—that is, by becoming experts in
domesticity—especially cooking, cleaning, and sewing” (ibid., 63). As
Joanne Belknap put it, “[A]n important role of the reform movement
philosophers’ imprint –  9  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
in women’s prisons was to encourage and ingrain ‘appropriate’ gen-
der roles, such as vocational training in cooking, sewing and cleaning”
(1996, 95; cited in Davis 2003, 71). As institutionalized mechanisms of
assignment, such regimes pushed AFAB persons into binary feminine
gender roles.
In addition, by pushing “fallen women” into training that empha-
sized domestic labor, women’s prisons reinforced gender, race, and
class hierarchies. They prepared more affluent women for domestic
lives of financial dependence on husbands, and they “steered poor
women (and especially Black women) into ‘free world’ jobs in domes-
tic service” (Davis 2003, 70). Moreover, since Black and Indigenous
American women were often segregated from incarcerated White
women, sentenced to men’s prisons, or exposed to the convict lease
system, these “feminized” women’s prisons reflected and reinforced
conceptions of femininity that center Whiteness (ibid., 72).
Although mechanisms of assignment often push GNC folk into
their assumed birth assignment, they don’t always enforce conformity
with one’s birth assignment; they enforce conformity to the binary,
whether one is pushed to conform to one’s birth assignment or to the
so-called opposite gender. Dean Spade describes how medical institu-
tions enforce and stabilize the gender binary by making conformity
to binary gender norms and dominant binary trans narratives pre-
requisite for access to gender-affirming surgeries or hormones. “The
‘successful’ daily performance of normative gender is a requirement
for receiving authorization for body alteration” (Spade 2006, 319). In
some cases, one is expected to “live in the new gender role … for 1 to
2 years in order to experience life in the new role and develop appro-
priate role behaviors” (Shore 1984, 277). In most cases, one must ac-
quire letters from two mental health experts and document persistent
gender dysphoria.10 Take these points in the context of surgeries that
10. One is often also required to rehearse a dominant narrative according to
which one identified with “the opposite gender” from a young age. As Spade
points out, this both (i) reinforces the invisibility of non-binary transpeople
and (ii) makes it seem as though only people who have identified with “the
opposite gender” from a young age experience gender dysphoria in a way
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
affirm the genders of cis women or men: breast augmentation, plastic
surgery, hair implants, and so on. As Spade points out, one doesn’t
need letters from two psychiatrists or to live “as a small-nosed woman”
for years before being granted access to rhinoplasty (Spade 2006, 315).
There are no restrictions on medical interventions that contribute to
gender conformity, and they are often covered by medical insurance
(Spade 2011, 148–149). But similar interventions are denied unless or
until it’s proved that they won’t contribute to gender non-conformity.
In these cases, mechanisms of assignment punish GNC folk and push
us into gender conformity by inhibiting access to medical services and
making gender conformity a necessary precondition for treatment.
2. Assimilation
Mechanisms of assimilation push GNC folk into the gender binary by
making basic necessities and goods available only to persons who as-
similate to some binary gender. Whereas mechanisms of assignment
push us into some assigned place in the gender binary—usually the
gender associated with one’s presumed birth assignment—mecha-
nisms of assimilation push us to be somewhere, anywhere in the gender
binary. Mechanisms of assignment enforce the placelessness of GNC
folk by assigning individual people into binary gender roles; mecha-
nisms of assimilation enforce the same by pushing GNC folk to assimi-
late into physical, institutional, legal, and social spaces that allow only
for binary gender roles. Mechanisms of assignment push triangular
(oval, rectangular, trapezoidal, etc.) blocks into round holes or square
holes. Mechanisms of assimilation produce lids (for buckets of blocks)
that have only round and square holes.
Readers are likely aware that the organization of physical, insti-
tutional, legal, and social space is such that there is often no place
for GNC folk qua GNC. Gender segregated bathrooms, schools,
worth taking seriously. Consequently, when any person P experiences dis-
comfort with their assigned gender role (as most people do), the dominant
narrative tells us to ask whether P identified with “the opposite gender” from
a young age or not. If so, then P is binary trans. If not, then P is not trans at all
and should “remain” in their assigned binary gender role.
philosophers’ imprint –  10  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
dormitories, sports, prisons, shelters, and recovery centers are com-
mon. They organize physical, institutional, legal, and social space in
ways that make appropriate places for people who are men (and not
women) and appropriate places for people who are women (and not
men). If you are both or neither, then patriarchal gender segregation
organizes the world such that there is no place for you. If you want to
use the bathroom, live in a dormitory, play a sport, or access a shelter
for homelessness, addiction, or to escape abuse, then you will often
have to assimilate into the gender binary; this means you must stop
being both/neither, conceal your gender non-conformity, or let oth-
ers overlook it. If you are incarcerated or sent to a gender segregated
school, shelter, or care facility, you will be presumed to be (only) a
man or (only) a woman. Gender segregated spaces serve to enforce
the nonexistence of GNC folk and push us into the gender binary.
More and less official gender binary markers also push us to assim-
ilate. Government identifications and applications for jobs, schools,
scholarships, etc. often require one to choose a binary gender. (At
present, seventeen countries, eighteen US states, and the District of
Columbia allow non-binary gender designations on at least some of-
ficial documents.) Many schools that aren’t gender segregated have
gender-marking uniforms. If Ze is neither a boy nor a girl or both a
boy and a girl, then there is no appropriate uniform for Ze to wear. It
is currently legal for employers to prescribe sex-differentiated dress
codes (Clarke 2019, 978), and, in any case, “professional attire” is often
relative to the wearer’s presumed binary gender. If one is neither/both,
then one is less likely to be read as “professional” during interviews or
other formal interactions for jobs, schools, scholarships, court hear-
ings, etc. Gender-coded identification, dress, and customs exclude
GNC folk and reinforce our placelessness.
Things have improved in some cases—some universities, airports,
shopping malls, restaurants, etc. have all gender or single-occupancy
bathrooms, for instance, and there are ongoing attempts to recognize
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
non-binary genders on US passports.11 But the fact remains that pa-
triarchal gender binary norms call for accommodations that exclude
GNC folk. Where they do, mechanisms of assimilation make it so that
there is no place for us unless we assimilate to some binary gender.
As Lori Watson puts it, we must “adopt a gender or fail to have a so-
cial existence” (Watson 2020, 240). Assimilating to the gender binary
is necessary not only for accessing resources but for having a social
existence at all. If you fail to satisfy binary gender norms, you won’t
have a social identity, and you won’t be recognized as intelligibly hu-
man (cf. ibid.). Mechanisms of assimilation structure the world so that
social standing, respect, recognition, and moral worth are distributed
in ways that exclude GNC folk.12
When mechanisms of assimilation push GNC folk into the gender
binary, they sometimes push a single individual into different binary
positions in different cases; when they do, they are especially punitive,
and they often reinforce (and are reinforced by) other mechanisms of
oppression. Dean Spade gives an example.
[F]or example, one person born in New York and living in
New York might have a birth certificate she cannot change
from “M” to “F” because she has not had genital surgery; a
driver’s license that correctly reflects “F” because she got
a doctor’s letter; Social Security records that say “M” be-
cause she cannot produce evidence of surgery; a name
change order that shows her new feminine name; and a
Medicaid card that reads “F” because the agency had no
official policy and the clerk felt the name change order
and driver’s license were sufficient. (Spade 2011, 145)
Whether this person identifies as binary or non-binary, she is situated
among patriarchal norms as gender non-conforming, and thus she is
11. See H.R. 5962 for federal legislation that would allow a non-binary gender
identification.
12. Thanks to a referee for this journal for suggesting that I expand on this point
in this way.
philosophers’ imprint –  11  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
a target for mechanisms of assimilation. Moreover, the ways that she
has been assimilated in different cases combine to make for another
violation of patriarchal gender norms. Binary gender norms preclude
the possibility of persons who are “M” in some cases and “F” in oth-
ers, and yet this is what her records show. Consequently, those who
consult her records in the light of patriarchal gender norms may target
her for further exclusion, marginalization, or violence. This includes
employers who do background checks or who require documentation
that confirms information on one’s job application; it includes police,
officials checking documents for travel, and bureaucrats involved in
processing applications for other official documents. As Spade points
out, in the context of the war on terror, when such discrepancies show
up in the gender records of persons already subject to increased sur-
veillance—thanks to their race or immigration status—it can make
them a target for interrogation, detention, and violence (Spade 2011,
146). Similarly, in the case of Black, Brown, and Indigenous persons
already targeted for incarceration and violence by state systems, dis-
crepancies in one’s gender records offer an occasion for incarceration
and state violence.
The dangers of “inconsistent” records have increased as the United
States has increasingly targeted undocumented immigrants. In ef-
forts to identify undocumented immigrants, US government agencies
that collect identifying data now regularly compare their data looking
for “mismatched” information on individuals. (Previously, data had
been shared only during specific investigations.) When they find it,
they might threaten to revoke the individual’s driver’s license, pres-
sure their employer to rectify the “discrepancy,” etc. (Spade 2011, 151).
These new policies expose immigrants and anyone whose gender re-
cords “conflict” to harassment and exploitation by employers, violence
from police or ICE, and loss of access to government services and ben-
efits. Here, misandrogyny facilitates surveillance of undocumented
immigrants while the targeting of undocumented immigrants for ha-
rassment, exploitation, and violence exposes GNC folk to the same.
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
Mechanisms of assimilation have played significant roles in colo-
nialism. Colonial efforts to assimilate Indigenous peoples, for instance,
often included enforcing binary gender norms on communities that
had recognized non-binary genders for generations (see, e.g., Mor-
gensen 2010, 111–116). Moreover, Indigenous violations of binary
gender norms were often taken as justification for forced assimila-
tion. Mark Rifkin shows how “policies aimed at assimilating Indians
… figured Indian cultures as other than heteronormative in order to
reinvent and assimilate them as straight, private property-owning,
married citizens.”13 Andrea Smith has argued that sexual violence and
“the imposition of European gender relationships on Native commu-
nities” even enabled European colonization of Native peoples (Smith
2005, 139). Ifi Amadiume describes how, prior to colonialism, the gen-
der system of the Nnobi society in southeastern Nigeria allowed for
what Amadiume calls “male daughters” and “female husbands.” But
under colonialism, the institutional and social structures supporting
these gender positions were condemned, abandoned, and reinter-
preted in order to assimilate the culture to the patriarchal gender bi-
nary (Amadiume 1987, 123). In these cases and others, mechanisms of
assignment, assimilation, and annihilation work in concert to serve
the purposes of colonialism. Cultures that recognize more than two
genders or that allow more gender non-conformity were forced to re-
organize themselves to fit the patriarchal gender binary. Individuals
who were non-binary were subject to mechanisms of assignment—
“gendered and sexual reeducation” (Morgensen 2010, 114). Individuals
and communities who didn’t assimilate were subject to mechanisms
of annihilation (ibid., 111–117; Smith 2005, 178). The mechanisms of
misandrogyny in these cases conjoined with racist, religious, and Eu-
rocentric ideologies to enact and justify genocide and exploitation.
Meanwhile, the need to legitimize colonial genocide and exploitation
13. Schneider 2007, 606–607, referring to Rifkin 2006. Cited in Morgensen 2010,
108.
philosophers’ imprint –  12  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
plausibly helped reinforce binary gender norms and mechanisms of
misandrogyny.14
3. Annihilation
Mechanisms of annihilation aim to bring it about that GNC folk are non-
existent. They push GNC folk out of literal, social, legal, institutional,
or epistemic existence. If mechanisms of assignment push triangu-
lar (oval, rectangular, trapezoidal, etc.) blocks into square and round
holes and mechanisms of assimilation produce systems that have only
round and square holes, then mechanisms of annihilation discard, dis-
count, and destroy blocks that aren’t round or square.
Readers are probably already aware that fatal violence against trans
and gender non-conforming people is rampant. According to numbers
compiled by Transrespect Versus Transphobia Worldwide, at least 350
trans and gender non-conforming people were murdered from the
beginning of October 2019 to the end of September 2020; dispropor-
tionately many were Black women or women of color, sex workers,
migrants, and/or poor. Although many of us mourn these murders
annually on Trans Day of Remembrance, patriarchal norms that call
for the nonexistence of GNC folk often position them as justified—it’s
supposed to be that we don’t exist. In recounting the 2008 murder of
Latisha King, Gayle Salamon makes the case that “in many instances
of violence against gender-nonconforming people and transpeople …
violence justifies itself by characterizing non-normative gender as it-
self a violent act of aggression and reading the expression of gender
identity as itself a sexual act” (Salamon 2018, 5). The defense in the Lati-
sha King murder trial pursued a “gay panic” defense, in which a man
presumed to be straight claims that he was thrown into a panic by a
gay man’s sexual advances and thereby led to allegedly justified vio-
lence. Salamon attended the trial and reports that the defense team of-
fered “no evidence of explicitly sexual aggression on Larry’s [Latisha’s]
part,” but that instead, “no sexual provocation was required because
14. Thanks to a referee for this journal for pointing this out.
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny
Larry’s feminine gender was already a panic inducing provocation” (ibid. 5,
emphasis in original). According to the logic of a gay panic defense, a
man seeks to exculpate himself from violence by appealing to the re-
vulsion and rage of being the object of a gay sexual advance. On these
lawyers’ extension of that defense, an AMAB person’s mere expres-
sion of a feminine gender is similarly threatening and similarly an ex-
cuse for violence. Their case, in short, was that Latisha’s mere gender
non-conformity justified her being the target of violence. The violence
justifies itself, as Salamon says. Talia Mae Bettcher describes much the
same in the murder of Gwen Araujo and her murderers’ appeal to a
“trans panic defense” (Bettcher 2007, 44).
The case of Latisha King illustrates one intersection of mechanisms
of annihilation and mechanisms of White supremacy. Latisha King
was biracial and identified as Black; in one pretrial hearing, a gang
expert testified that her murderer, Brandon McInerney, was affiliated
with a White supremacist group (Salamon 2018, 39–40). One would
expect these facts to inform public understanding of the murder and
subsequent trial. But media reporting and the trial focused on King’s
gender non-conformity (ibid., 25–37). The press seemed to ignore the
relevance of White supremacist violence to the murder. On the one
hand, the focus on King’s gender non-conformity—rather than on her
murderer’s White supremacy—bolsters Salamon’s claim that accord-
ing to patriarchal norms, King’s own gender expression was the cause
and justification of the murder. On the other hand, the refusal to ac-
knowledge the role that White supremacy might have played in the
murder is plausibly a consequence of what Charles Mills calls “White
ignorance,” wherein epistemic norms warped by a White supremacist
political system call knowers to ignore the causes and consequences
of racial oppression (see Mills 1997; 2007; see also Medina 2012 35)
Mechanisms of annihilation are also manifest in medical neglect,
abortion of intersex fetuses, and genocide. In August 1995, Tyra Hunt-
er was in a car accident that left her badly injured; when EMTs arrived
and uncovered her genitalia, they stopped treating her for 5–7 crucial
minutes while they made transphobic jokes and used racist and sexist
philosophers’ imprint –  13  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)
slurs. When she arrived at the hospital, some doctors refused to treat
her and some assumed she was HIV+. She died about an hour after
arriving at the ER.
As noted above, intersex newborns are often positioned as GNC
folk at birth and targeted by mechanisms of assignment. Intersex fe-
tuses, meanwhile, are often targeted by mechanisms of annihilation.
Kwon Chan Jeon and colleagues report on the regularity with which
intersex fetuses are targeted for termination (Jeon et al. 2012).
As noted in the previous section, mechanisms of annihilation are
often mutually reinforcing with colonial oppression. Scott Lauria Mor-
gensen points out that “[c]olonists interpreted diverse practices of
gender and sexuality as signs of a general primitivity among Native
peoples. Over time, they … framed Native peoples as queer populations
marked for death” (Morgensen 2010, 106, emphasis added). He reports,
for instance, that when European-descended explorers encountered
non-binary Indigenous peoples in North America, their response was
less often to single out the non-binary individuals for violence and
more often to subject their communities to “military attack, contain-
ment, or removal” (ibid., 113). In conjunction with settler colonialism
and racism, mechanisms of annihilation targeted entire communities
for nonexistence.
In addition to taking away the physical lives of GNC folk, mecha-
nisms of annihilation also target us for social, legal, institutional, and
epistemic nonexistence. One would like a precise definition for each
of these “kinds of nonexistence,” but I won’t provide any here. None-
theless, I take the general idea to be relatively straightforward: when
mechanisms of annihilation aren’t literally destroying GNC folk, they
serve to marginalize us to such a degree that we have no social, legal,
institutional, or epistemic standing. As Lori Watson says:
Gender non-conforming persons … are perceived as oc-
cupying a space of contradiction: human and not intel-
ligibly human. Their bodies and self-presentation do not
fit within the schema of intelligible humanity. Normative
 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny

notions of humanity carry with them the gender binary. Belknap, J. 1996. The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime, and Justice. Bel-
One is never simply a human. They are a kind of human, mont, CA: Wadsworth.
a man, a woman, a member of a racial group, and so on. Berenstain, N. 2019. Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne.
(Watson 2020, 240) Mind 128(512): 1360–1371.
Bettcher, T. M. 2007. Evil deceivers and make-believers: On transpho-
When we’re situated among patriarchal norms as “not intelligibly hu-
bic violence and the politics of illusion. Hypatia 22(3): 43–65.
man,” we don’t have social, legal, institutional, or epistemic standing.
Bohrer, A. J. 2019. Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and
The mechanisms that enforce those norms see to it.
Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
4. Conclusion Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
New York: Routledge.
Misandrogyny is a system of mechanisms that—together with other
———. 1993. Bodies That Matter. New York: Routledge.
systems of oppression—enforces the norms that constitute the patriar-
Clarke, J. A. 2019. They, them, and theirs. Harvard Law Review 132(3):
chal gender binary. According to those norms, everyone is either only
894–991.
a man or only a woman; GNC folk don’t exist. Misandrogyny enforces
Collins, P. H. 2015. Intersectionality’s definitional dilemmas. Annual
this nonexistence by (i) assigning GNC folk to a binary gender and
Review of Sociology 41: 1–20.
punishing non-conformity to that gender, (ii) assimilating GNC folk
Crenshaw, K. W. 1989. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and
and cultures into the binary gender system, and (iii) eliminating GNC
sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, femi-
folk and cultures. Although much has been written on gender policing,
nist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum
binary gender norms, transphobia, and other topics related to misan-
1989(1): 139–167.
drogyny, we also need to appreciate that misandrogyny is a system
Davis, A. 2003. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press.
of mechanisms that punishes those who violate binary gender norms.
Fausto-Sterling, A. 2000. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Con-
Future work should elaborate further on how misandrogyny intersects
struction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
with other systems of oppression, including misogyny, transphobia,
Ferrara, M., and Casper, M. 2018. Genital alteration and intersex: a
White supremacy, ableism, classism, and settler colonialism; and it
critical analysis. Current Sexual Health Reports 10(2): 1–6.
should spell out how mechanisms of annihilation bring about social,
Hancock, A.-M. 2007. When multiplication doesn’t equal quick addi-
legal, institutional, and epistemic nonexistence.
tion: Examining intersectionality as a research paradigm. Perspec-
References tives on Politics 5(1): 63–79.
Jeon, C. J., L. Chen, and P. Goodson. 2012. Decision to abort after a
Amadiume, I. 1987. Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in
prenatal diagnosis of sex chromosome abnormality: A systematic
an African Society. London: Zed Books.
review of the literature. Genetics in Medicine 14(1): 27–38.
Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir. 2011. The metaphysics of sex and gender.
Logie, C. H., and Rwigema, M.-J. 2014. “The normative idea of queer
In Feminist Metaphysics: Explorations in the Ontology of Sex, Gender
is a white person.” Understanding perceptions of white privilege
and the Self, Charlotte Witt (ed.), 47–66. New York: Springer.
among lesbian, bisexual, and queer women of color in Toronto,
Canada. Journal of Lesbian Studies 18(2): 174–191.

philosophers’ imprint –  14  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)

 jeff m. engelhardt The Logic of Misandrogyny

Manne, K. 2019. Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. New York: Oxford Spade, D. 2006. Mutilating gender. In The Transgender Studies Reader,
University Press. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle (eds.), 315–332. New York:
May, V. 2015. Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries. Routledge.
New York: Routledge. ———. 2011. Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and
McGowan, M. K. 2009. Oppressive speech. Australasian Journal of Phi- the Limits of Law. Brooklyn, NY: South End Press.
losophy 87(3): 389–407. Stryker, S. 2008. Transgender History. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
Medina, J. 2012. The Epistemology of Resistance. Oxford: Oxford Univer- Watson, L. 2020. Gender policing: comments on Down Girl. Philosophy
sity Press. and Phenomenological Research 101(1): 236–241.
Mills, C. 1997. The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Zheng, R. 2016. Why yellow fever isn’t flattering: A case against ra-
—2007. White ignorance. In Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Tuana, cial fetishes. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2(3):
N. & Sullivan, S. (eds), SUNY Press, pp. 11–38. 400–419.
Morgensen, S.L. 2010. Settler homonationalism: Theorizing settler co-
lonialism within queer modernities. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and
Gay Studies 16(1–2): 105–131.
Nicolazzo, Z. 2016. “It’s a hard line to walk”: Black non-binary trans*
collegians’ perspectives on passing, realness, and trans*-norma-
tivity. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 29(9):
1173–1188.
Rifkin, M. 2006. Romancing kinship: A queer reading of Indian edu-
cation and Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories. GLQ: A Journal of
Lesbian and Gay Studies 12(1): 27–59.
Rimes, K.A., N. Goodship, G. Ussher, D. Baker, and E. West. 2019. Non-
binary and binary transgender youth: Comparison of mental health,
self-harm, suicidality, substance use and victimization experiences.
International Journal of Transgenderism 20(2–3): 230–240.
Salamon, G. 2018. The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenom-
enology of Transphobia. New York: New York University Press.
Schneider, B. 2007. Oklahobo: Following Craig Womack’s American
Indian and queer studies. South Atlantic Quarterly 106(3): 599–613.
Shore, E. 1984. The former transsexual: A case study. Archives of Sexual
Behavior 13: 277–285.
Smith, A. 2005. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide.
Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

philosophers’ imprint –  15  – vol. 22, no. 10 (july 2022)